# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_October 1864_S319
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Church and Contemporary Affairs. 319

resolution of August 17. The demonstration, so the decree states, that Schenkel is not in
accord with the doctrines of the confessional writings would, even if successful, not suffice
to establish the justification of the petition. For these writings are not laws of faith in
the sense that every disagreement with them would suffice to contest a servant of the
church's standing within it. The freedom of theological inquiry, so far as it strives only
honestly "that we may learn to understand the Lord Jesus, the Lord of glory, better than
our fathers were able to," is to be acknowledged in its fullest scope as a condition of the
origin, as well as of the vigorous unfolding, of Protestantism. The intellectual culture of
the present age, the enlarged means of research, have their undeniable rights, whereby it
is undeniable that "the conceptual form which the old church gave to its idea of the
person of the Redeemer can no longer be unconditionally shared by the living generation."
— So far the church council. It is to be hoped that the 117 will find an energetic protest
against this rescript, by which the Supreme Church Council renounces the foundation of
Christianity. More than a protest is neither possible nor necessary, since, thank God, the
Supreme Church Council, as the administrative authority of the sovereign, is only an
expression of the momentary free-thinking court theology, and not of the — though not
Lutheran, yet Christian — confessional standing of the Baden territorial church that
rightfully exists. Perhaps His Royal Highness the Grand Duke of Baden will learn from
experience that it does no good, for church or state, that his Supreme Church Council
strips "the Lord of glory" of his glory.
Dr. Graul has moved to Erlangen to lecture there, and, for the purpose of his
habilitation, delivered on June 1, in the hall of the University of Erlangen, an address
"on the position and significance of the Christian mission within the whole of university
scholarship."
The Hamburg Baptism. Pastor Deacon Glitza at St. Catherine's in
Hamburg has for years now, probably from the very beginning, never baptized otherwise
than in the name of the Father and of the Son and of "the Christian spirit." The intent
of this baptismal formula leaps to the eye. The Christian spirit is not the Holy Spirit of
the churchly and biblical baptismal formula, nor is it meant to be. The Christian spirit is
the spirit of the congregation, and since the congregation as such has no particular
personal spirit, it is the Christian disposition that lives in the congregation. This
Christian disposition is present among the orthodox only in heavy obscurity mixed with
all sorts of antiquated articles of faith, from which Glitza, for instance, already at
baptism feels compelled to depart, in order to plunge the young citizen of the world
straightaway into the spirit of progress and free thought. For once the Holy Spirit has
been cut away from the baptismal formula and replaced with the spirit of Glitza and his
associates, the Trinity has ceased to mean anything; Father and Son are understood and
explained according to the Christian spirit. Such a thing can go on undisturbed in
Hamburg. Only a year ago it happened that the sponsors at a child's baptism protested
most solemnly against this progress-baptism. But since the child's parents made nothing of
it, several persons brought a complaint against Pastor Glitza before the ecclesiastical
ministerium, at whose head stands the senior, Alt. It is said that Alt convened the
ministerium without stating what was to be discussed, and that as a result several
pastors stayed away from the session. Only seven, or even only five, pastors are said to
have declared themselves decisively against this baptismal mischief, so that nothing came
of the complaint. Glitza, indeed, later had the effrontery to have it printed publicly in the
"Freischütz" that he would never baptize otherwise than he had baptized hitherto. Nothing
remained for the plaintiffs but to turn to the Senate with their grievance and represent
how Glitza was trampling underfoot the very confession of faith that he had sworn upon
entering his office. The Senate has filed the grievance among the records, where to this
day it enjoys undisturbed rest. Perhaps it is more important whether and how the ships
are baptized. With a Hamburger, therefore, one can never really know whether he is
baptized, even if he produces a baptismal certificate. It would first have to be officially